Labor senator Sam Dastyari has succumbed to intense pressure to quit the Senate in the face of continued revelations that he had promoted Chinese interests.

Dastyari told a brief news conference, at which he took no questions, he had decided “the best service I can render to the federal parliamentary Labor Party is to not return to the Senate in 2018”.

He said his ongoing presence would detract from “the pursuit of Labor’s mission” and he wanted to spare the party “any further distraction”.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that in 2015 Dastyari tried to dissuade Labor’s then shadow foreign minister Tanya Plibersek from meeting a pro-democracy advocate during her trip to Hong Kong.

This followed an earlier revelation that Dastyari had tipped off his Chinese businessman benefactor, Huang Xiangmo – who is of interest to Australian security authorities – that his phone was likely tapped.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said that following their discussions, Dastyari had informed him he was resigning from the Senate. “I told him I thought this was the right decision.”

It is understood that Shorten had been in intensive talks with factional allies to resolve the Dastyari crisis. Labor had no power to force Dastyari out of parliament – and sources said he was reluctant to go.

He said he had always acted with integrity “and I remain a loyal, patriotic Australian”.

Dastyari has been under sustained pressure to quit the Senate, with this week’s leak of his representations to Plibersek seen as part of the effort from within the ALP to get him out. On Monday two frontbenchers, Linda Burney and Catherine King, made it clear he should consider his position.

Sources said some people in Labor’s right had been concerned about the precedent set by Dastyari having to resign – given that he had not done anything illegal.

The government had maintained a constant attack on Shorten for not forcing Dastyari to leave, casting the issue as a test of Shorten’s leadership.

Dastyari’s resignation comes in the dying days of the Bennelong byelection, which a Newspoll in Tuesday’s Australian shows as being extremely close. The Newspoll has the Labor and Liberal parties on a 50-50 two-party-preferred vote, and each on a 39% primary vote.

The byelection follows the resignation of the Liberals’ John Alexander in the citizenship crisis; he is being challenged by former New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally.

Keneally’s name has recently been mentioned as a possible replacement senator for Dastyari if she failed in her bid to win Bennelong.

Bennelong has a significant Chinese community, and the row about Dastyari and also more generally the concern about foreign interference in Australian politics, could have some influence in the byelection, although how those factors will play out there is unclear.

Dastyari entered the Senate in 2013. A former secretary of the NSW Labor Party, he has been a significant figure and numbers man in the NSW right faction. In parliament, he has been active on issues of banking and misconduct in that industry.

He said he would continue to be an active grassroots member of the Labor Party.

Shorten said that Dastyari could be proud of what he had achieved as a senator. “He has sought justice for the victims of banking misconduct, exposed the tax minimisations processes of international giants, pushed for a better deal for younger Australians and promoted an inclusive multicultural nation.”

Joseph Cheng Yu-Shek, the pro-democracy activist that Dastyari unsuccessfully tried to persuade Plibersek not to meet, told the ABC that Chinese authorities “operated a very powerful, very resourceful machinery trying to influence the policies of various foreign countries”.

“This machinery tries to cultivate ties with influential politicians, tries to persuade them to be friends of China, and as friends of China, they should avoid meeting enemies of China,” he said.

“If these situations become effective, the politicians concerned will be rewarded and then they will be pressured to do something even more compromising later,” he said.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari is under renewed pressure to quit after allegations that he repeatedly pressed the ALP’s then foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek not to meet an advocate for Chinese democracy in 2015.

ALP frontbencher Linda Burney told Sky News early on Monday: “It is now up to Mr Dastyari to consider his position … Sam Dastyari I’m sure is thinking very deeply about his role within the party”.

Shortly after, another Labor frontbencher, Catherine King, also said: “Sam needs to reflect upon his position”.

The new allegation comes after earlier revelations about Dastyari tipping off a Chinese benefactor who was of interest to Australian security services that his phone was likely tapped.

The latest report in the Fairfax Media said that in January 2015, Plibersek went to Hong Kong. There, her meetings included one with Joseph Cheng Yu-shek, a prominent academic with Australian citizenship.

Dastyari “repeatedly attempted to warn Ms Plibersek that her meetings in Hong Kong would upset figures in the Chinese community in Australia”, the report said. He left messages on her phone and contacted her office multiple times, it said.

But he was unable to reach her directly, because she had left her mobile phone at home for security reasons – although his messages were passed on to her, according to the report.

A spokesman for Dastyari said the claims were “complete rubbish”.

The latest claims against Dastyari, which appear to have come from within Labor, are thought to be part of an effort to get him to resign from the Senate.

Dastyari’s links with China have become a severe embarrassment to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. The government is relentlessly pursuing Shorten over them.

After it was revealed that Dastyari alerted Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo about his phone being probably tapped, and audio emerged of Dastyari reflecting China’s line on the South China Sea, Shorten stripped him of his position as deputy opposition whip in the Senate.

Late last week, Shorten said Dastyari’s career was “going nowhere, fast”. Dastyari was doing no media on Monday morning, but his office said he wasn’t quitting.

Labor cannot force him to resign from the parliament – it could only throw him out of the party. But any move against him by Shorten is complicated by Dastyari being a leading member of the New South Wales right, whose support Shorten needs.

Plibersek’s office has consistently declined to be drawn about Dastyari’s representations. Rumours about these have been circulating in Canberra for some time.

A spokesman said Plibersek’s “itinerary in Hong Kong, including a meeting with a prominent pro-democracy activist, went ahead precisely as scheduled – I think that speaks for itself”.

The Fairfax story put forward “one suggested explanation” for the Dastyari representations – that he contacted her office following an inquiry from a Sydney Chinese-language media outlet, which was preparing a critical story on her meetings.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton accused Dastyari of being “a double agent”, saying “he can’t be in the Australian Senate and it is important that Linda Burney has called for him to go and now Bill Shorten should do the same”.

The latest controversy around Dastyari comes days after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced into parliament legislation to combat foreign interference in Australian politics. The government and the security agencies have become increasingly alarmed at the growing scale of this intervention.

But the new legislation, which includes a register for those lobbying for foreign governments and businesses, has sparked an angry backlash from China. It has also been criticised by former trade minister Andrew Robb, who now works for the Chinese company Landbridge Group.

At the Queensland election, held on November 25, the size of parliament was increased from 89 seats to 93. Comparing this result with 2015, Labor officially won 48 of the 93 seats (up four), the Liberal National Party 39 (down three), Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) three (up one), and One Nation, the Greens and an independent won one seat each.

With 45 seats held by parties other than Labor, Labor has won a three-seat majority.

Adjusted for the new boundaries and excluding defections, the 2015 results gave Labor 48 seats and the LNP 43. Using this interpretation, there was no net change for Labor, while the LNP lost four seats.

Labor gains from the LNP in Gaven, Aspley and Redlands were countered by losses in Bundaberg, Burdekin and Mirani (to One Nation). The LNP also lost Maiwar (to the Greens), Hinchinbrook (to KAP) and Noosa (to an independent). This is the first Greens elected MP in Queensland.

Townsville was expected to be very close, but Labor won it by 214 votes (50.4-49.6), clinching its 48th seat.

The LNP’s decision to recommend preferences to One Nation in 50 of the 61 seats it contested gave One Nation a win in Mirani, but cost independent candidate Margaret Strelow in Rockhampton. Had LNP preferences in Rockhampton flowed to Strelow instead of One Nation, Labor would have very probably lost, instead of retaining it 55-45 against One Nation.

One Nation contested 61 of the 93 seats, and won 13.7% of the statewide vote. Had it contested all seats, it would probably have won about 18%. Only the single member system stopped One Nation from winning much more than its one seat.

If the Queensland result were replicated at a half-Senate federal election, in which six senators are up for election, Labor would win two seats, the LNP two, One Nation one, and the last seat would probably go to the Greens.

Pauline Hanson received a long Senate term, which does not expire until June 2022. If Malcolm Roberts is the top One Nation candidate on its Queensland Senate ticket at the next federal election, he will probably win a six-year term starting July 2019.

Turnout was 87.5%, down 2.4 points since 2015. Automatic electoral enrolment has increased the size of the electoral roll, but many of those who are now enrolled do not vote, so the turnout falls.

The informal rate was 4.3%, up from 2.1% in 2015, owing to the change to compulsory preferential voting from optional preferential. The informal rate was below Queensland’s informal rate (4.7%) at the 2016 federal election.

Victorian Galaxy: 50-50 tie

A Victorian Galaxy poll for the Herald Sun (paywalled link), conducted on December 6 from a sample of 828, had a 50-50 tie, a three-point gain for Labor since a Galaxy in June for an unidentified source.

By 58-20, voters favoured building the East West Link, and by 57-30, they thought the decision to cancel it was bad rather than good. The Liberals were thought better to manage the economy by 48-33 over Labor – an area of perceived Coalition strength.

77% of regional voters believed they are being dudded in favour of Melbourne on government spending.

Tasmanian EMRS: 34% Liberal, 34% Labor, 17% Greens, 8% Lambie Network

A Tasmanian EMRS poll, conducted between December 1 and December 5 from a sample of 1,000, gave the Liberals 34% (down three since August), Labor 34% (steady), the Greens 17% (up one) and the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN) 8% (up three). The next Tasmanian election is likely to be held in March 2018.

As EMRS is skewed to the Greens and against Labor, Kevin Bonham interprets this poll as 37.5% Labor, 35.5% Liberal, 14% Greens and 8% JLN. The most likely seat outcome under Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system would be ten Labor, ten Liberals, four Greens and one JLN, out of 25 total seats.

Essential 55-45 to federal Labor

This week’s Essential moved a point to Labor, in contrast to Newspoll. Labor led 55-45, from primary votes of 38% Labor, 35% Coalition, 9% Greens, 8% One Nation and 2% Nick Xenophon Team. Essential uses a two-week sample of about 1,800, with additional questions based on one week.

64% thought there was a lot or some sexism in the media, 60% in both politics and advertising, 57% in workplaces, 56% in sport, and 48% in schools. Since January 2016, there have been one-to-four point falls in perception of sexism in politics, advertising, workplaces and sport, but a six-to-eight point increase in media and schools.

By 51-24, voters thought that MPs who defect from the party they were elected to represent should be forced to resign from parliament. By 54-25, voters preferred a government where one party has an overall majority to a coalition arrangement.

By 38-34, voters thought the Liberal and National parties should continue in coalition, rather than separate and become more independent; however, Coalition voters preferred the Coalition arrangement 73-13.

Among Coalition voters Turnbull led Bishop 40-20, with 13% for Abbott.

Alabama Senate byelection next Wednesday (Melbourne time)

In February, Jeff Sessions resigned from the US Senate to become Donald Trump’s attorney-general, and the Alabama governor appointed Luther Strange to the Senate until the election was held. The election will be held on December 12, with results from 12 noon on December 13 Melbourne time.

I previously wrote about Republican candidate Roy Moore’s alleged sexual encounter with a 14 year-old girl when he was 32.

After this and other similar allegations were made, Democratic candidate Doug Jones took a poll lead. However, Moore appears to have recovered, and analyst Harry Enten says he leads by about three points. If the polls are overstating Moore by a modest margin, he could lose.

Alabama is a very conservative state that Trump won by 28 points at the 2016 election. That this contest appears competitive is surprising.

After going to the polls on November 25, Queenslanders finally have a state election result as Liberal National Party leader Tim Nicholls conceded defeat on Friday.

Following a four-week campaign, votes were counted for almost a fortnight until Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor Party was confirmed the victor. Palaszczuk is the first female premier to win back-to-back elections. In 2015, she’d become the first woman at state or federal level to lead her party to government from opposition.

But it’s not the clear-cut result Palaszczuk desired. Labor appears to have won 48 seats in the 93-member parliament to the LNP’s 39. This leaves Palaszczuk’s returned government with a slim majority and a diverse crossbench.

A complex contest

With a record field of candidates in an expanded number of electorates – many with redrawn boundaries – this shaped as a complicated election. Adding to its unpredictability was the reintroduction after 25 years of compulsory preferential voting.

While two-party-preferred swings were generally not as large as at the last two state elections, overall figures showed a fragmented statewide vote. More than 30% gave their first preferences to minor parties and independents. This exceeded the One Nation-driven protest vote in 1998.

This continues the trend of a declining primary vote for the major parties. Combined with compulsory preferencing, several electorate contests duly developed into three- or even four-horse races, extending the time needed to correctly distribute preferences and declare results. Some seats were decided only after the arrival of postal votes, up to ten days after the polling date.

Like the previous Queensland and federal elections, a close and protracted count left the government in extended caretaker mode. Voters in Queensland and the rest of Australia may need to accustom themselves to a new norm of tight, drawn-out contests, where party leaders’ election night speeches might be obsolete.

Winners and losers

Labor went into the election with a notional seat count of 48 following the redistribution. Despite a 2% decline in its statewide vote, it emerges with little change in its electoral stocks.

Gains in the state’s southeast corner at the LNP’s expense offset a few seat losses in central and north Queensland, where persistent unemployment has been a worry.

To the government’s relief, every cabinet member held their seat. Deputy Premier Jackie Trad survived one of the stronger challenges, a 10% two-party-preferred swing to the Greens in South Brisbane. Brisbane’s inner suburbs, as in other state capitals, are now highly vulnerable to a rising green tide.

The LNP suffered a negative swing of almost 8% – and even higher in parts of the southeast. High-profile casualties included shadow frontbenchers Scott Emerson, Ian Walker, Tracey Davis and Andrew Cripps in the north falling victim to erratic preference flows.

Emerson has the distinction of losing the newly created seat of Maiwar in inner Brisbane to Queensland’s first elected Greens MP, Michael Berkman.

In other firsts, Labor’s new member for Cook in far-north Queensland, Cynthia Liu, is the first Torres Strait Islander elected to any Australian parliament. Innovation Minister Leanne Enoch becomes the state’s first Indigenous MP to be returned at an election.

One Nation’s Stephen Andrew, who defeated veteran Labor MP Jim Pearce in Mirani in central Queensland, becomes the first descendent of South Sea Islander labourers to enter state parliament.

Decisive issues

Besides bread-and-butter issues of job creation, power prices and transport infrastructure, neither Palaszczuk nor Nicholls could escape the dominant themes of this election. The proposed Adani coal mine project animated voters in different parts of the state for different reasons, as did the spoiler role that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was presumed to play.

Together, these factors reinforced an impression of “two Queenslands” in contention during the campaign.

Protests against the Adani mine’s environmental impact – and questions over its long-term economic benefit to regional communities – featured regularly once the election was called. Palaszczuk succeeded in defusing the issue to some extent early in the campaign with an abrupt declaration that she would veto federal infrastructure funding for the mine’s construction.

A feared backlash in places of regional discontent and high youth unemployment, like Townsville, didn’t entirely materialise, with Labor incumbents holding seats against expectations. But these concerns, in tandem with uncertainty over the Adani project, saw Labor lose Bundaberg and nearly lose the traditionally Labor-voting Rockhampton to independent candidate and former mayor Margaret Strelow.

The LNP’s position on supporting the Adani mine with public funds, and Nicholls’ prevarication over dealing with One Nation, appear to have hurt the party in Brisbane especially. But so too did Labor reminding voters of Nicholls’ role as treasurer in the Newman government.

As the election neared, Nicholls was swamped by constant questioning about cosying up to One Nation.

While always difficult to quantify, the federal Coalition government’s woes amid the same-sex marriage debate and citizenship fiasco likely did the LNP few favours.

Role of the minor parties

The Greens and One Nation capitalised on the dip in major party support, gaining significant vote shares of 10% and almost 14% respectively. However, each party won only a single seat.

Critically, both parties stripped valuable primary votes from Labor and the LNP, especially the latter’s vote in the regions. This will furrow the brows of federal Coalition MPs through this term of government. For good measure, One Nation preferences likely helped unseat some LNP MPs in the southeast.

The party’s state leader, Steve Dickson, lost out to the LNP in Buderim, while Senate outcast Malcolm Roberts didn’t present a serious threat to Labor in Ipswich.

Despite its failings, One Nation attracted more than 20% in the seats it contested and finished runner-up in two dozen of them, perhaps largely down to Hanson’s constant presence throughout the campaign.

Katter’s Australian Party (KAP), though standing candidates in only ten seats and not making much impact on the campaign, might have done best of all the minor parties. Its primary vote improved to more than 2%, gaining it another seat in Hinchinbrook on Labor and One Nation preferences.

KAP’s targeted approach might prove unwelcome news for the federal Coalition, which can expect similar levels of focused disaffection from conservative regional voters elsewhere. But a fragmenting primary vote spells trouble for all the major parties.

What next for Queensland?

Queensland now enters its first fixed-term period of government. The next election is due on October 31, 2020, with four-year terms following that.

Labor holds only 13 of 51 seats outside the Greater Brisbane area. With all seats decided, factional negotiations will now unfold to determine the make-up of Palaszczuk’s new cabinet. It’s fair to assume it will be Brisbane-centric.

With such a concentration of government MPs in the capital, Palaszczuk’s team will presumably clock up many kilometres – and spend some political capital – reassuring the regions they’re not forgotten.

In the wake of an underwhelming result for the LNP, Nicholls announced he is stepping down as party leader and won’t contest a leadership ballot early next week. The likes of David Crisafulli or Tim Mander, or potentially Deb Frecklington, loom as Nicholls’ likely successors.

Party insiders have complained that the election result proves the marriage between the formerly separate Liberal and National parties in Queensland has failed and should be broken up.

It is not impossible that the Greens, who started the citizenship crisis with the resignation of then-senator Scott Ludlam, could end up winners from this fiasco that has cut a swathe through the parliament and threatens more havoc.

Wednesday’s reference to the High Court of Labor’s David Feeney, who holds the Melbourne seat of Batman, has certainly put a gleam in the Greens’ eyes.

Feeney hasn’t been able to produce the documentation to confirm the renunciation of British citizenship which he says he made a decade ago.

Unless the paperwork turns up or the High Court shows a leniency that hasn’t been in its nature recently, a byelection in Batman would give the Greens a big chance of installing a second MP to keep Adam Bandt company in the House of Representatives.

Bill Shorten is understandably livid about Feeney, who before the last election overlooked declaring a A$2.3 million house, only narrowly held off the Greens in his seat, and now, if he triggers a byelection, could reduce the opposition’s numbers. No wonder there’s speculation he’d be ditched as Labor’s candidate.

And Feeney’s rank carelessness, to describe it most charitably, comes on top of the recent new revelations about Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s conduct, showing how deeply the New South Wales numbers man has been in the thrall of the Chinese, in particular of a Chinese business benefactor.

It’s made for a very uncomfortable end to the parliamentary year for Shorten, who in previous months had most things breaking his way.

The citizenship crisis had taken a heavy toll on the government, with a minister and the Senate president gone from parliament, and the deputy prime minister and a Liberal backbencher forced to byelections.

To put things in perspective: yes, they all failed to do due diligence, but none of them compromised themselves in the way Dastyari did.

Now it’s Labor in the crosshairs. The situation of several of Shorten’s MPs – leaving aside the egregious case of Feeney – is problematic, and Shorten’s boast about Labor vetting processes is being seen as hubristic.

It will be months before Labor will know what damage the citizenship crisis might do to it.

It will be more contained if the High Court, when it considers the case of ACT senator Katy Gallagher who was also referred this week, accepts the ALP argument that an MP is constitutionally eligible provided they took reasonable steps to renounce foreign citizenship before nominating, even though confirmation didn’t come through by then.

If, however, the court were to find that the candidate needs the confirmation before they nominate, that could trigger byelections in three ALP seats (Braddon in Tasmania, Longman in Queensland and Fremantle in Western Australia) as well as in Mayo, held by crossbencher Rebekha Sharkie.

The Gallagher case will set a precedent for the other MPs with similar circumstances (although if Gallagher were knocked out her Senate position would be filled by a countback, not a byelection).

While byelection swings usually go against governments (Saturday’s result in New England notwithstanding), the thought of having to fight in the marginal seats of Longman and Braddon would make Labor nervous.

Even if it turned out that the only byelection were in Feeney’s seat, the strong prospect of a loss there would sour and distract Shorten’s new year.

Similarly, the extent of the fallout from the Dastyari affair is not yet clear.

There is no defence for Dastyari’s action in warning his Chinese benefactor that his phone was likely tapped, so they should talk outside. That was the core of the latest revelations, which came on top of earlier ones about Dastyari receiving financial largesse and toeing China’s policy line on the South China Sea.

But from Shorten’s point of view, dealing with the Dastyari issue is fraught.

All Shorten has done this time is strip him of what minor responsibilities he had.

It’s fanciful to think Shorten would ever contemplate trying to throw him out of the Labor Party, which would mean taking on the NSW right, and would reduce Labor’s Senate numbers.

But while Dastyari stays, Shorten is open to Coalition attacks and hostage to anything further that may come out – just when the government is cracking down on attempts by foreign interests to influence Australian politics. Dastyari might face an inquiry by the Senate privileges committee.

It would be a gift for Shorten if Dastyari were to decide rehabilitation is too long a road and he should look for other career opportunities.

The problems that Shorten currently faces highlight certain weaknesses that his critics identify in his political approach.

The citizenship issue shows the way he plays the tactical game relentlessly, with insufficient appreciation of how things can come back to bite you.

Of course Labor would make the most of the government’s embarrassment over its dual citizens, but Shorten left himself little wriggle room when he insisted for so long Labor was fireproofed, despite warning signs it mightn’t be.

When its vulnerability was exposed this week, Shorten doubled down. After all MPs’ declarations became public, Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus produced a list of Coalition members who Labor said hadn’t supplied enough evidence that they were not dual citizens. One was Josh Frydenberg, whose mother had been fleeing persecution. Frydenberg’s inclusion in the Dreyfus list brought rebukes from two Labor MPs.

This was followed by Labor’s unsuccessful attempt to refer four Liberals (not including Frydenberg) to the High Court, as well as four of its own and Sharkie.

The move on the Liberals looked like seeking cover, especially when one of them, Nola Marino, produced a letter from Italian authorities saying she did not have Italian citizenship.

Surely it is adequate to rely on a country’s word that someone is not a citizen? Certainly Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek is using a letter from Slovenian authorities.

The Dastyari affair raises questions about how far Shorten is willing to go for those who are politically important to him.

Dastyari had to leave the front bench after the initial revelations about his Chinese links.

But within months he was given a partial leg up, becoming deputy opposition whip in the Senate. This seemed undue haste, and it raises concerns about Shorten appearing beholden to his allies. We see another example in his refusal to take a tougher line towards the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

Despite the setbacks, Shorten is still very well-placed, compared with Turnbull, as the end of 2017 approaches, although the December 16 Bennelong byelection will play into this balance.

Nevertheless, it is Shorten, rather than Turnbull, who appears to face the bigger uncertainties in the early part of 2018.

The opposition failed in an attempt to get a “job lot” of MPs referred that included four Liberals, four from the ALP, and the Nick Xenophon Team’s Rebekha Sharkie.

The ALP motion was supported by all five crossbenchers, resulting in a tied vote of 73-73. The Speaker, Tony Smith, acting in line with parliamentary convention, used his casting vote to defeat the motion.

The government, insisting that none of its MPs should be referred, wanted the members considered individually.

But crossbenchers rejected that argument, seeing it as the government being partisan.

The government said it would continue to talk to the crossbenchers overnight but they are not likely to be swayed before parliament rises this week for the summer recess.

The Labor MPs in the opposition motion were Justine Keay, Josh Wilson, Susan Lamb and Feeney.

The case of Gallagher – who took action to renounce her British citizenship but did not get registration of her renunciation before she nominated for the 2016 election – should provide guidance in relation to the three other Labor MPs and Sharkie, who have similar circumstances.

Labor argues that those who had taken reasonable steps to renounce but did not receive their confirmations in time (or, in Lamb’s case, at all) are eligible.

Feeney is in a different category from the other Labor MPs – he has not been able to provide evidence that he renounced his British citizenship in 2007, as he says he did. He was referred after the job-lot motion’s defeat.

Both Gallagher and Feeney accepted they should be referred. Gallagher, while maintaining her eligibility, told the Senate she was standing aside from her frontbench positions and had asked to be referred to the court, saying her opponents would continue to use the issue.

Labor said the four Liberals – Jason Falinski, Julia Banks, Nola Marino and Alex Hawke – had not provided adequate documentation of their eligibility.

In the run up to the vote, Marino released advice from the Italian consulate saying she was not an Italian citizen.

Falinski produced advice saying that he was not a citizen of the UK, Poland, Russia or Kyrgyzstan. But the letter to Falinski was dated Wednesday and the law firm, Arnold Bloch Leibler, said that “as previously discussed, we cannot conclusively advise on foreign law and recommend that you seek independent advice from foreign law experts”.

The crossbenchers were lobbied hard over the motion, including on the floor of the chamber, by both the opposition and the government.

Labor made an unsuccessful attempt to get its motion dealt with before Barnaby Joyce, who has just faced a byelection after the High Court declared him ineligible to sit, returned to the lower house.

Labor had a temporary majority but did not have enough time. Joyce was sworn in at 1.15pm and his presence in the subsequent debate meant the numbers were tied.

Moving the motion, Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke said: “The only appropriate way for us to deal with this is to make sure that, wherever there has been serious doubt across the chamber, the High Court becomes the decision-maker rather than the numbers on the floor of this house”.

Arguing for a case-by-case approach, Malcolm Turnbull said that Labor “with not a principle in sight, with not a skerrick of evidence … wants to send members of the House to the High Court … without making any case that they are, in fact, dual citizens”.

The Greens’ Adam Bandt said the approach must be “even-handed and non-partisan”. “We think there should be an agreed set of names that go forward from this house.”

Crossbencher Bob Katter told the parliament that none of the MPs should be sent to the High Court.

Labor leader Bill Shorten revealed that he had known for just over a week that Feeney didn’t have the required documents.

“I informed him that he needed to tell the parliament what was happening, and I made it clear to him that there was a deadline of disclosure,” Shorten told reporters.

Feeney has said he is still trying to have the British authorities find documentation that he renounced UK citizenship.

If Feeney is disqualified, Labor would be at risk of losing his seat of Batman to the Greens. There is doubt over whether he would be the candidate in a byelection.

Shorten did not disguise how angry he is with Feeney. “I am deeply frustrated – that’s a polite way of putting it – that one of my 100 MPs can’t find some of the documents which, to be fair to him, [he] says exist and says he actioned,” Shorten said.

He admitted that if he had been aware of Feeney’s situation he would not have been so definite in his repeated confident statements about the eligibility of all his MPs.

Labor was divided internally over whether it should pursue Josh Frydenberg, whose mother came to Australia stateless: the Burke motion did not include him. The ALP is also not at this point pursuing another of those it has named, Arthur Sinodinos, who is away on sick leave.

Among those likely to be referred to the High Court are several senators and MPs whose citizenship declarations show they were technically still dual citizens when nominations closed before the 2016 federal election, but who claim they had personally taken all reasonable steps to renounce their dual citizenship before that date.

This group includes Labor’s Katy Gallagher (who has been referred to the High Court already), Justine Keay, Susan Lamb and Josh Wilson, and the Nick Xenophon Team’s Rebekha Sharkie.

All reasonable steps?

Several of these MPs have received legal advice suggesting they will not be disqualified under Section 44 of the Constitution because they had taken all reasonable steps to renounce their dual citizenship before nominating as an election candidate.

For example, all appear to have completed their renunciation paperwork and paid the required fee before nominating, but were waiting on the British Home Office to register the renunciation. They did not receive formal confirmation of their renunciation until after the election.

Under British law, citizenship does not cease until the secretary of state actually registers the declaration of renunciation.

In order for someone personally taking “all reasonable steps” to be eligible – in circumstances where that renunciation has not actually been accepted – the High Court would need to take a flexible view of Section 44’s wording.

The court has never been asked to directly consider this precise set of circumstances before, so nobody can be entirely sure what it would find. But given the strict reading of Section 44 adopted in recent cases, it would not be surprising if these five MPs were all found to be disqualified.

In the case of the “Citizenship Seven”, the court unanimously found that the dual citizenship provision is “cast in peremptory terms”. This means it sets out a definite obligation in clear and certain words.

While the court found there would be cases where someone who had taken “all reasonable steps” to renounce dual citizenship would not be disqualified, this was not a test of general application. Rather, it was a specific exception that applied where the law of a foreign country prevented someone from renouncing their foreign citizenship, or made it unreasonably difficult for them to do so.

This was based on the constitutional imperative that an Australian citizen should not:

… be irremediably prevented by foreign law from participation in representative government.

None of the five MPs mentioned above were “irremediably prevented” from renouncing. Instead, they had failed to do so in enough time to have the renunciation registered before the required date. So, it is difficult to see the court accepting that the British renunciation procedures were so unreasonable that they amounted to someone being “irremediably prevented”.

Taking this approach, the only fact that will matter is that these MPs were all still actually dual citizens at the time of nomination. On this basis, they would all be disqualified.

To escape disqualification, they will need the court to extend the “all reasonable steps” exception to every case of dual citizenship. It is open to the court to do this, but the recent decisions in relation to both the Citizenship Seven and Hollie Hughes suggest a stricter approach.

This means it is entirely possible that Gallagher, Keay, Lamb, Wilson and Sharkie will all be declared ineligible. At the very least, there is a real question to be answered about their eligibility.

That it has taken more than five months and a compulsory declaration procedure for this to come to light reflects extremely badly on these MPs.

Previous ineligibility

The citizenship registers have also revealed that there are several MPs who were eligible at the time of the 2016 federal election but who appear to have had dual citizenship issues for at least part of a previous parliamentary term. This includes Greens senator Nick McKim, Labor senators Alex Gallacher, Louise Pratt and Lisa Singh, and Liberal senator Dean Smith.

Since they relate only to previous parliamentary terms, none of these cases will be referred to the High Court. However, these MPs’ conduct should not escape criticism.

Again, that it has taken more than five months and a compulsory declaration procedure for these cases to come to light is highly disappointing.

The real issue here isn’t one of dual citizenship, but rather the honesty and integrity of our MPs. The dual citizenship issue is likely to be fixed in the future through greater candidate awareness and political parties undertaking stricter vetting processes. The loss of trust between the Australian people and their MPs is much harder to fix.

Labor has been dealt a further blow in the citizenship crisis, with Victorian MP David Feeney flagging his status is likely to go to the High Court because evidence cannot be found that he has renounced his British citizenship.

This follows confirmation on Monday by Labor senator Katy Gallagher that she was still a British citizen when she nominated for last year’s election, although she had taken steps to renounce.

If Feeney were found ineligible, Labor would be at high risk of losing his Melbourne seat of Batman to the Greens.

Last year Feeney beat Greens candidate Alex Bhathal by a whisker; the two-candidate vote was 51-49%. The Greens won the recent byelection for the state seat of Northcote, which is within Feeney’s electorate.

At the crossbench Christmas party in Parliament House, the Greens had a toast to Batman.

As the declarations of House of Representatives MPs were posted online, Feeney told parliament that while in 2007 he had signed documents to renounce any citizenship rights he might have inherited from his father – who was born in Northern Ireland – the British authorities could not locate his notice of renunciation. He had been informed they did not keep records for such a long period.

He said he still had inquiries outstanding with the UK, and had also sought past bank records to determine whether he had made a payment that was processed by the UK Home Office at the time.

While “to the best of my memory from a decade ago” he had sent the paperwork to both the UK and Ireland, and could confirm he was not an Irish citizen, “I accept that I have been unable to produce the requisite notice of renunciation with the respect to the United Kingdom”, he said.

“I remain hopeful that continuing searches of the UK records and archives will clarify this issue in my favour. Nevertheless, I accept that at this moment my status as a citizen in UK law remains unclear. On that basis, if I have still been unable to locate the relevant documents by the time this issue is dealt with by the House of Representatives, I will be asking the manager of opposition business to refer this matter to the High Court,” he said.

“You’ve got to assume that Bill Shorten has known for some time that David Feeney had this problem and really it just completely exposes his dishonesty and his hypocrisy when it comes to this issue,” Cormann said on Sky.

Feeney recently deleted a tweet in which he had said: “Noticed how the Turnbull govt has strangely stopped mocking the Greens Party for incompetence and sloppiness?”

The citizenship declarations confirm that Labor MPs Josh Wilson and Justine Keay had not had their renunciations of British citizenship registered by the time of nomination. Another Labor MP, Susan Lamb, had tried to renounce, but the UK said it was not satisfied she held British citizenship.

The Nick Xenophon Team’s Rebekha Sharkie did not receive her confirmation of renunciation in time.

The government and Labor are now in talks about referrals to the High Court. Referrals will be made before parliament rises later this week.

Labor, thrown on the back foot in the ongoing crisis, lashed out at the government with Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus claiming Malcolm Turnbull was “covering up” for as many as seven government MPs who could have constitutional problems. These MPs had not provided the needed evidence to prove they weren’t dual citizens, he said.

Dreyfus’ list included:

Jason Falinski, who said he made inquiries from the Polish consulate and had legal advice but had not provided it.

Josh Frydenberg, who said he had received Hungarian, Polish and Australian legal advice but hadn’t produced it.

Nola Marino, who said she had legal advice to show she was not Italian but did not provide it.

Julia Banks, Alex Hawke, Michael McCormack and Arthur Sinodinos, who all had “an unconvincing letter” from the Greek embassy and “refuse to provide legal advice”.

“The Liberal and National MPs who have not been forthcoming with all available evidence must either seek to update their incomplete disclosures as soon as possible, or refer their eligibility to the High Court,” Dreyfus said.

Falinski rejected the demand to produce legal advice saying to do so would “pierce legal and professional privilege” and others hadn’t done so. He accused Dreyfus of playing “base politics to obscure the truth”.

Update

On Wednesday morning Gallagher announced to the Senate that she had asked for her eligibility to be referred to the High Court. She said she was standing aside from her portfolio responsibilities within the shadow cabinet and her role as manager of opposition business in the Senate until her case was resolved. She insisted she was eligible to sit in the Senate but said it was clear the government had decided she should be referred and her political opponents would continue to use the issue.

The revelations that Senator Sam Dastyari warned a Chinese Communist Party-linked Labor donor that his phone was likely tapped by intelligence agencies are certainly newsworthy and in the public interest.

The Turnbull government has since flagged a raft of new intelligence laws. The legislation, to be introduced into parliament this week, will reportedly include:

banning Australian political parties from receiving foreign donations

strengthening laws on the disclosure of classified information

making it a crime to support foreign intelligence agencies

restrictions targeting foreign spies.

The public release of intelligence can no doubt have a powerful impact on the political environment, as last week’s reports about Dastyari demonstrate. The claims are certainly troubling, but when secret intelligence becomes front-page news, it is always worth looking beyond the headline.

Public intelligence is political intelligence

Classified and sensitive information is designed to be secret. When it is made public it is always for a political purpose. That purpose may be to promote a particular political agenda or to build public support for a certain policy position.

It may even be for partisan political gain, but it will always affect the political narrative. Because intelligence disclosures are so sensational, they are a very effective method of drawing attention to certain issues while distracting from others.

Intelligence that is deliberately released to the media for political purposes is known as “public intelligence”. When secret intelligence becomes public intelligence, it becomes a powerful tool of political influence.

Intelligence has an authority and influence that may not reflect its content. This is because of the psychological impact of intelligence.

Intelligence is usually classified, which makes it appear valuable. It is often collected covertly, so the public expects it to reveal hidden secrets. The result is that information from intelligence sources is treated with an unusually high degree of reverence and respect.

Intelligence also has a voyeuristic, illicit appeal. When intelligence stories feature in the news, readers are given a glimpse of a world that is normally off-limits. This is especially true for a generation raised on Bond movies, whose primary understanding of intelligence activities stems from popular culture.

Stories that feature intelligence exposes can therefore expect to have a broad audience, reaching beyond the typical consumer of political news.

Public intelligence has limitations

Despite its appeal, public intelligence has several significant limitations.

First, it is important to remember that public intelligence is incomplete. It is only a small section of a greater picture, and usually offered without context or nuance.

Intelligence reports are uncertain; the judgments they contain are always qualified. But in the process of selecting the information for publication, any cautionary judgments or concerns about sources are removed. As a result, when select pieces of intelligence are publicly released, intelligence loses its uncertainty and gains an authority and aura of truth that may not be deserved.

The now-discredited intelligence dossier on weapons of mass destruction released prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a case in point. In the aftermath of the invasion, when the weapons could not be found, it was revealed that the intelligence released publicly had been cherry-picked, that ambiguous evidence was presented as certified proof, and that the intelligence judgments had been massaged to more firmly fit the political line.

The second point to consider is that publicly released intelligence usually cannot be corroborated or contested. Even though certain pieces of intelligence may be released, the source and methods used to obtain that information are not.

This means that even if they wished to, neither the press nor the public have the means to assess the accuracy of intelligence information. We simply do not know if the information comes from a trustworthy source, or was obtained by reliable methods. However, we are not able to refute it.

Public intelligence should be viewed critically

Because of the political nature of public intelligence, combined with its limitations as a reliable source, both media producers and consumers should consider public intelligence with greater scepticism than other news items, not less.

Dastyari’s conduct should not be excused or minimised. However, when secret intelligence becomes public intelligence, it may pay for us to ask where our attention is being drawn, why that might be the case, and what we might be missing while we are looking the other way.

Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher can expect to be referred to the High Court after the release of senators’ citizenship declarations on Monday confirmed the ACT senator was a British citizen when she nominated for the 2016 election.

But she says she will not refer herself to the court because her legal advice was that she had taken all the steps required of her before she nominated – even though her renunciation of foreign citizenship wasn’t registered until later.

The declarations of all senators were posted online on Monday. House of Representatives MPs must produce their declarations by Tuesday morning; these will be made public within a day or so.

Gallagher, who entered the Senate via a casual vacancy during the previous term, is one of several Labor MPs likely to be referred to the court, as the citizenship crisis turns on the opposition.

The government has indicated it will refer Labor MPs who had not had their renunciations confirmed by nomination day. In these cases, the MPs took steps to renounce foreign citizenship and will argue they did all that was required.

Others likely to be referred are Justine Keay, who holds the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, and Josh Wilson, the member for Fremantle in Western Australia.

Susan Lamb, the member for Longman in Queensland, has also been targeted by the government, although her case is more complicated. She has said the British Home Office questioned whether she held citizenship to renounce, and asked for more paperwork which she could not supply.

The government says Labor should refer any of its own people whose status is in doubt. Labor has attacked the threat to refer Labor MPs but it is not disclosing what position it will ultimately take.

Sydney University constitutional expert Anne Twomey says Labor will need the court to take a liberal rather than a strict legal interpretation of the Constitution if it is to avoid byelections in its seats.

She said the ALP would have a “reasonable case” to argue in the court. But it was hard to predict how the decisions would go because there had been mixed messages.

In the 1992 Sykes v. Cleary case the court had indicated a nominee only had to take the reasonable steps within their power to renounce their dual citizenship.

But in remarks the court had made in one of the recent cases, its reference to reasonable steps was in the context of circumstances where the other country would not acknowledge renunciation. It was unclear whether this was because the court was now taking a stricter view of the test or whether it would uphold the authority of the Cleary case, Twomey said.

She said the court might also take a different view where a candidate had purposely delayed initiating action to renounce, from a case where they had been chosen late in the piece and then acted with all speed.

Keay has admitted waiting some time after she was advised by the Labor party to divest herself of her British citizenship. She has said: “I delayed it – it’s one of those things with the citizenship I knew I could never get it back”.

She told the Burnie Advocate: “If I didn’t get elected I can’t get my citizenship back and for me, it was a very personal thing”, saying it was the last tangible connection with her father.

On the other hand Wilson – who replaced another candidate at the last minute – was only endorsed by his party on May 12, 2016, for the July 2 election, and completed the renunciation paperwork the same day.

Early in the citizenship crisis Bill Shorten repeatedly declared publicly the opposition was confident that none of its MPs would be vulnerable, saying it had a comprehensive vetting process. More recently Labor has become nervous.

Shorten’s concern was clear to Malcolm Turnbull when they met some weeks ago about the citizenship crisis, which has now claimed victims across the political spectrum – although so far no Labor MPs.

The Nick Xenophon Team’s sole lower house member, Rebekha Sharkie, who holds Mayo in South Australia, is also facing referral. She too did not get her renunciation formalised before nomination.

It is not known whether there are further lower house MPs with possible dual citizenship at the time of nomination. Turnbull said at the weekend he was confident there were not any more Coalition MPs who had been dual citizens.

The declarations of senators indicated that several had been dual citizens in the last parliament before getting their affairs in order for the election.

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IMPORTANT NOTE

News reports of persecution and other information posted here does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the 'Blog Author-Master.'

Genesis 9:13-16: The Rainbow

13. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.